Any form of reproduction of the contents or parts of this manual is allowed only with the express written permission from SEP AG. When compiling and designing user documentation SEP AG uses great diligence and attempts to deliver accurate and correct information. However, SEP AG cannot issue a guarantee for the contents of this manual.

This is not the latest version of SEP sesam documentation and, as such, does not provide information on features introduced in the latest release. For more information on SEP sesam releases, see SEP sesam Release Versions. For the latest documentation, check latest Release Notes.

If SEP sesam Server is running, the REST API can be accessed via the base URL:
http://<host>:<port>/sep/api/. For details, see Using SEP sesam REST API.

SEP sesam Server requirements

Java 8 (at least patch level 111)

SEP sesam Tigon v. 2 requires Java version equal to or higher than JRE 8u111 (≥ JRE 1.8.0_111). regardless of the operating system. Previous Tigon versions also require Java 8 for Windows Server and GUI, but not for other OS. For details, see Java Compatibility Matrix.

JavaFX

JavaFX is required for the web dashboard and user-defined schedules features. The dashboard can also be viewed in GUI, but only if JavaFX is present on the respective GUI client. If JavaFX is not available, the web dashboard can only be accessed by browser (http://[servername]:11401/sep/ui).

Note

Oracle®'s Java 8 already includes JavaFX (e.g., on Windows). Oracle®'s OpenJFX Project provides JavaFX packages that can be installed separately if some other Java version is used, such as IBM Java, which is typically installed on SuSE. Depending on your system and Java version, manually install either OpenJFX package or Oracle®'s Java 8 on your SEP sesam GUI client to have all the latest features available.

64-bit or PowerPC (PPC) architecture required

SEP sesam Server requires an operating system running on 64-bit or a PowerPC (PPC) architecture. PowerPC (PPC) is supported for several Linux distributions, see SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Callback File System® (CBFS®) version 6.1.181 from EldoS Corporation, used to create virtual file systems and disks for save sets which are stored on SEP sesam local data store or Si3 deduplication store.

Note

A CBFS driver is needed for the virtual file system layer (Cross Platform Recovery File System – XPRFS). The installation/update of this driver requires a reboot of your newly installed or updated Windows SEP sesam Server unless this driver is already installed with a previous SEP sesam 4.4.3 installation.

SEP sesam Server and Client components should be upgraded to the latest version during the upgrade process. This ensures that SEP sesam Clients are fully protected. Customers with a valid license are eligible for a free upgrade of SEP sesam to any new release for the duration of the license. See also Automatic Updates and Automatic Installation on Windows.

Known issues and limitations

Note

Antivirus programs may disrupt network communication and cause SEP sesam processes, such as backup and replication, to fail. One program that is known to cause SEP sesam processes to terminate is Sophos Firewall with IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) enabled. Make sure that there are no antivirus, firewall, IDS or IPS programs preventing interaction with SEP sesam.

4.4.3 Tigon known issues:

Note

All the known issues in Tigon versions 4.4.3.42/.43/.45 are fixed with 4.4.3 Tigon V2.

When backing up via hypervisor and using external disk, SEP sesam cannot back up the data on the independent or RDM disks, because hypervisors are not able to back up such devices. The data of such disks is silently skipped from backup, hence the backup saveset contains no data for the independent or RDM disks while the backup succeeds and no warning about the missing data is issued. If a restore of a VM with independent/RDM disk is performed to the original VM by using the option overwrite, the independent/RDM disk is re-created and all existing data on the restore target is lost.

Workaround: To back up virtual machines that contain independent disks and RDMs, you have to install the SEP sesam Client in the virtual machine and perform an additional file or application backup to back up this data.

While trying to backup multiple virtual machines, only the last VM is backed up. The other VMs are skipped. This happens because SEP sesam erroneously backs up only the last VM in the source list.

Resolve: Fixed with SEP sesam Server update to 4.4.3.48 Tigon V2

After updating SEP sesam Server from v. 4.4.3.25 to 4.4.3.42, the GUI (sm_ui.jar) on SEP sesam Clients becomes outdated and cannot work together with the new SEP sesam Server GUI. This happens because SEP sesam Clients and SEP sesam Server can only work with the same GUI version.

Resolve: You have to update the GUI on the corresponding clients by using the new GUI package or by manually copying the sm_ui.jar file from SEP sesam Server into <SESAM_BIN>/bin/gui folder on SEP sesam Clients. For details, see Updating SEP sesam GUI.

In SEP sesam versions equal to or lesser than 4.4.3.45, if you select a client as a migration source in the schedule/event rather than in migration task, the data is not migrated because SEP sesam erroneously ignores the client.

Workaround: To select a client as a migration source, specify the client when creating a migration task: Main Selection -> Tasks -> Migration tasks. For details, see Creating a migration task.

As of SEP sesam v. 4.4.3, if the backup source of the UNC path backup is set at the top level to //server/share, e.g., //myserver/users, files without file extension are silently excluded from backup. Even though no exclude is defined, they are excluded because the source //server/share is extended with wildcard *.*, which is checked for regular files as of sbc Windows 4.4.3. This issue only occurs if the source is set at the top level; if the source is defined at the lower level, e.g., //myserver/users/anonymus, all files are backed up normally.

Workaround: When backing up a network share and your source is set at the top level, use the wildcard * to process all regular files: //server/share/*; e.g., //myserver/users/*. SEP support is working on this issue and will provide an sbc patch as soon as possible.

Resolve: This issue occurs if the installed Java version is not supported. SEP sesam requests a Java version equal to or higher than JRE 8u111 (≥ JRE 1.8.0_111). For details, see Java Compatibility Matrix.

In SEP sesam 4.4.3.39, when a selected saveset for restore contains umlauts or Unicode characters, GUI cannot find matching LIS line because UTF-8 character encoding was not preserved. Consequently, restore fails.

DIFF/INCR backups and migrations, when a saveset belonging to a FDI chain has too short EOL; if such a saveset is missing in the target pool, then any consecutive DIFF/INCR backup or migration that is running on a pool with longer EOL will increase the EOL of the saveset from the respective pool.

Failed backups and migrations; this results in extended EOL of the previous successful backup, either a COPY backup or complete FDI chain.

In such cases, the EOL of a saveset stored on another pool is automatically extended. In the case of migration of DIFF/INCR savesets (when a saveset belonging to the FDI chain is missing in the migration pool), this may lead to excessive EOL prolongation for savesets that originally have a very short EOL. For example, because DIFF/INCR migration detects that a saveset belonging to the FDI backup chain is missing in the migration media pool, the EOL of the saveset in the original pool is automatically extended, e.g., DAY (EOL: 5) to EOL of YEAR (EOL: 375).

Limitations

The data of such disks is silently skipped from backup, hence the backup saveset contains no data for the external disk while the backup succeeds and no warning about the missing data is issued.

In case of VMware, SEP sesam cannot back up the data on the independent or Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks due to a VMware limitation that does not support including independent/RDM disks in virtual machine snapshots. To have a successful backup, you should exclude the independent disks/RDMs from the backup task or install a SEP sesam Client in the virtual machine and perform an additional file or application backup to back up this data.

In case of other hypevisors (Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, KVM, OpenNebula), SEP sesam cannot back up the data on the RDM disks or on a VM without attached SCSI controller(s). To back these hypervisors, you have to add one or more SCSI controller to the virtual machine before performing a backup, even if there are no devices to use the SCSI, or you have to install a SEP sesam Client in the virtual machine and perform an additional file or application backup to back up this data.

Warning

If a restore of a VM with external disk is performed to the original VM by using the option overwrite, the disk is re-created and all existing data on the restore target is lost.

libvirt-based KVM virtualization

New backup extension provides efficient data protection for libvirt-based KVM virtualization. It performs online backups of KVM/QEMU virtual machines using snapshot technology and provides a complete or configuration restore to the same or another target. For details, see KVM/QEMU Backup.

SAP ASE

New backup extension provides efficient data protection for SAP ASE. It performs online backups of SAP based on Sybase ASE databases using the Sybase SQL API. For details, see SAP ASE Configuration.

Automating backup of VMware virtual machines

Whenever a new vCenter or ESXi host is added and there are a lot of new VMs present, it is possible to automate VMs backup by including VMs to task groups and using the option Create VM tasks. For details, see Automating Backup of Virtual Machines.

SEP sesam BSR Pro 2.0 for Windows

New version BSR Pro 2.0 for Windows – Windows Server 2016 now fully supported – has a new user interface with improved operability, introduces command line function and live update, and has enhanced backup and imaging speed. For more details, see BSR Pro 2.0 – Disaster Recovery for Windows.

NDMP single file restore

SEP sesam introduces selective restore for NDMP. It is now possible to restore single files from dump backups (files and directories are backed up to tape). For details, see NDMP Restore.

RHV VM reduction

During RHV restore, SEP sesam uses the dd utility to create a thin-provisioned (sparse) disk file, thus restoring only the actual size of the VMs. This reduction can be configured in the last step of the restore wizard by clicking Expert Options -> tab Options: Restore options -> enter the option: -a use_dd. For details, see Restoring RHEV Virtual Machines.

GUI enhancements

Database-based authentication can be enabled from GUI by activating authentication under the Permission Management. This is the only way to set the password for the Administrator user. For details, see Configuring Database-Based Authentication.

New option is introduced in the Schedule -> Parameter to prevent NEWDAY from cancelling running backups upon its start. For details, see NEWDAY Event.

GUI can be customized according to your needs – besides setting up different GUI layouts and filtering displayed contents, you can also change default data size units. For details, see Customizing GUI.

MSP license

The new Managed Service Provider license model is available. For more information, contact sales@sep.de.